Ex Parte Conrades

• Decision Date: 12 December 1904
• Citation: 185 Mo. 411,85 S.W. 160
• Parties: Ex parte CONRADES.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

85 S.W. 160

185 Mo. 411

Ex parte CONRADES.

Supreme Court of Missouri.

December 12, 1904.

COURTS — SUPREME COURT — CERTIFICATIONS FROM COURT OF APPEALS — SEARCHES AND SEIZURES — AUTHORITY OF EXAMINING BODY — PRODUCTION OF PRIVATE BOOKS.

1. Under the constitutional amendment requiring the Courts of Appeals to certify a cause, together with the original transcript therein, to the Supreme Court, where one of the judges of a Court of Appeals deems a decision rendered by it contrary to a previous decision of a Court of Appeals or of the Supreme Court, it is the duty of a Court of Appeals to transfer a habeas corpus proceeding to the Supreme Court where one of the judges of the former court deems its decision contrary to a previous decision of the Court of Appeals or of the Supreme Court, although the proceeding was instituted in the Court of Appeals, and did not come there by appeal, and although the judgment rendered, which remanded petitioner to custody, was not determinative of the rights of petitioner, who might make an original application to the Supreme Court notwithstanding such decision.

2. Nor does the fact, if a fact, that, since the certification of the cause by the Court of Appeals, petitioner has become discharged by operation of law, owing to the expiration of the session of the municipal assembly by whose authority he was detained, affect the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which is exercised in such cases primarily to accomplish uniformity of decision among the appellate courts, and not merely to determine rights of parties.

3. A resolution of a city council providing for the appointment of a committee to investigate the books and records of the departments of the city wherein returns are made of taxes, and empowering the committee to subpœna witnesses, and to send for persons and papers and administer oaths, does not authorize the committee so appointed to compel the production, for inspection and examination, of the private books and papers of a private business corporation.

In banc. Habeas corpus proceedings by J. H. Conrades, Jr., against John H. Strobel. Certified from the St. Louis Court of Appeals. Petitioner discharged.

W. E. Fisse and Judson & Green, for petitioner. Peter T. Barrett and Thos. B. Bashaw, for respondent.

ROBINSON, C. J.

This proceeding by habeas corpus was originally instituted in the St. Louis Court of Appeals on application of John H. Conrades, Jr., as petitioner, asking to be released from the custody of John H. Strobel, sergeant at arms of the house of delegates of the city of St. Louis, by whom he had been arrested and was being detained under a warrant charging him with contempt of that body, for refusing to submit books and papers of his corporation for inspection by a committee of said house of delegates. The return of the respondent to the writ, commanding him to produce the body of petitioner, set out at great detail all the proceedings of the house of delegates, and of its committee appointed to conduct the investigation which led up to and resulted in the petitioner's arrest and detention; also the several clauses of the city charter and ordinances showing the authority claimed by respondent for each step taken by said house of delegates and its committee, and all the facts necessary to a full understanding of the status of both petitioner and respondent, and their attitude to each other in this procedure. The facts of the case are in no wise disputed, and the case was submitted to the Court of Appeals upon a motion for a judgment upon respondent's return; and that court, in a majority opinion, written by Goode, J. (85 S. W. 150), ordered that the petitioner herein be remanded to the custody of respondent, while Bland, J. (85 S. W. 157), wrote a dissenting opinion, and, being of the opinion that the view expressed in the majority decision of that court was contrary to the decisions of this court, asked that the cause be certified to this court for final adjustment and determination. The order of certification was thereupon made, and the proceeding in that court was stayed, and the petitioner permitted to give bail pending the final action of this court. Before, however, we shall proceed to the consideration of the issues raised by the pleadings, as the cause was heard and determined in the Court of Appeals, we are asked to consider first the question of our own jurisdiction and authority in the premises, which is now challenged by respondent. By him it is said that the certification of a cause or proceeding under the provisions of the constitutional amendment relating to the St. Louis and Kansas City Courts of Appeals, which provides, "When any one of said Courts of Appeals shall in cause or proceeding render a decision which any one of the judges therein sitting shall deem contrary to any previous decision of any one of said Courts of Appeals, or of the Supreme Court, the said Court of Appeals, must of its own motion, pending the same term and not afterward, certify and transfer said cause or proceeding and the original transcript therein to the Supreme Court, and thereupon the Supreme Court must rehear and determine said cause or proceeding, as in case of jurisdiction obtained by ordinary appellate process; and the last previous rulings of the Supreme Court on any question of law or equity shall, in all cases, be controlling authority in said Court of Appeals" — is tantamount to an appeal in that cause or proceeding, and should be limited to causes and proceedings of an appealable nature, and also that as, in our state, there exists no right of appeal in habeas corpus to this or any court, this court is wanting in authority, under the circumstances, to hear and determine this proceeding in habeas corpus here by certification. This purpose of the framers of the constitutional amendment to exclude this court's jurisdiction in any cause or proceeding originating in the Court of Appeals, respondent contends, is clearly indicated by that portion of the constitutional amendment which provides that "said cause or proceeding and the original transcript therein shall be certified and transmitted to the Supreme Court * * * and by said court must be reheard and determined as in case of jurisdiction obtained by ordinary appellate process"; respondent's contentions being that, as a condition precedent to a valid order of transfer in any cause or proceeding by the Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court, there should be first an appealable case, "with an original transcript therein," to be transmitted to the Supreme Court. Respondent also insists that, notwithstanding the general language used in this constitutional provision, its manifest purpose is to include those causes and proceedings only wherein a decision has been rendered which is a final judgment, finally determinative of the right of the parties thereto, but not to mere orders or judgments in habeas corpus remanding a petitioner to the custody of the party by whom it is alleged he has been unlawfully detained, as was done in this instance, since such orders are in no sense final judgments, determinative of the rights of any one to the proceeding; and, as illustrative of his position, he asks us to consider the situation of this petitioner, who, had he so chosen, might immediately have renewed his application for discharge before this court, or any judge thereof, where it would have been acted upon in utter disregard of how his first application before the Court of Appeals had been considered or disposed of.

We think respondent has been lead into the error of his present contention by giving too much weight and importance to a mere minor detail in a general plan formulated for having causes certified from the Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court for final determination and disposition, and also by leaving out of sight and consideration the principal and controlling purpose and feature of said constitutional amendment, as the same has been declared by the decisions of this court. If respondent's construction of the purpose and object of this constitutional amendment should be adopted, making a valid order of transfer depend upon the precedent condition of an appealable cause in the Court of Appeals, with an original transcript therein, to be transmitted to this court, the necessary consequence must be to exclude from its operation all causes and proceedings over which either of the Courts of Appeals may exercise original jurisdiction. If this be done, we must ignore and hold for naught not only the plain, emphatic, and comprehensive language of this constitutional provision, but we must condemn a long and uniform course of practice in this court to the contrary, and reject as erroneous all that we have heretofore said upon the question as to the principal and controlling purpose and object of said amendment, which is "to secure uniformity of decisions between the Courts of Appeals and this court, and between the Courts of Appeals among themselves." State ex rel. v. Hickman, 150 Mo. 626, 51 S. W. 680. If uniformity in the opinion of our appellate courts is to be preserved (and nothing is more conducive to the power and influence of our courts with the people, and of more importance to the rights of a citizen, than that such should be a fact), it can only be attained by requiring that every kind and character of cause or proceeding that may reach said Courts of Appeals for consideration be certified to some final tribunal where all adverse or conflicting decisions as to the law of the case in said Court of Appeals may be adjusted and determined. Instead of this particular provision of this constitutional amendment, "said Court of Appeals must of its own motion pending the same term of court, and not afterwards, certify and transfer said cause or proceeding and the original transcript therein," upon which respondent has placed so much stress and emphasis, being read and considered as a limitation upon...